Newly installed as the world's most populous country, the South Asian nation is preparing to host its first International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session for exactly four decades.

This high-profile meeting will be held in the west coast business centre of Mumbai from October 15 to 17.

The event will play an important part in influencing sports leaders as they begin to turn their minds to whether the vast country and its vibrant economy are ready to host an Olympic Games.

As readers of this website will have noted, IOC President Thomas Bach seems keen, telling CNBC-TV18 recently that there is a "strong case". 

Indians would do well not to assume from this that the argument is won, however.

It is only natural for Olympic leaders to want to encourage interest from as many plausible hosts as possible for what is, after all, if not a mammoth undertaking for a state of India’s dimensions, then a complex and delicate one.

Furthermore, the next available Summer Games - 2036 - is fully 13 years away.

There is no earthly reason for the IOC to rush the decision; some might argue, indeed, that it would be downright foolhardy for the organisation to select its next Summer Games partner after Brisbane more than a decade out, in a world where the pace of change spins faster and faster and future events seem harder and harder to predict.

A seven-year interval, as used to apply under the laudably transparent former bidding system, still seems about right.

For context, 2036 is not only more than a decade after the end of Bach’s Presidential term, scheduled for 2025; it is just a year before the German’s successor would be due to step down, even assuming she/he served the maximum two terms permissible under the current Olympic Charter.

Having said all that, plenty does seem to be going India’s way at the moment.

In narrow Olympic terms, the cricket-obsessed sub-continent is among the last major markets where one can easily imagine interest in the Games ratcheting significantly higher.

Bach appeared to allude to this in his comments to CNBC-TV18, asserting: "India can play a much more important role in the Olympic Movement and for the Olympic Movement to have such a growth potential as with India. It’s of course very welcome."

Over and above hosting the Games, the route to increased domestic consumer interest seems both fairly obvious and eminently attainable.

For one thing, cricket needs to be on the Games programme - and current procedures should make this possible for a future Indian host, even if the sport has not already been ushered back into the Olympic fold for Los Angeles 2028 or Brisbane 2032, as it looks increasingly likely that it will be.

For another, India needs to win more medals - something that should not pose too many problems once the country sets its mind to the task, largely because its level of Olympic achievement up to this point has been so low for a nation of so many people.

India has to date won the sum total of 35 Olympic medals, over a third in field hockey.

Its tally of seven medals, including just one gold, in Tokyo was the best the country has ever managed.

In broader economic terms, while in much of the world - including now China - growth seems sluggish and precarious, India by comparison is roaring ahead.

Growth of more than six per cent is expected for India this year.

Even that figure, impressive as it is, does not convey the full picture: Chris Giles, the Financial Times’s widely-respected economics editor, wrote last month, "You don’t have to predict that China is about to suffer a property meltdown to think that India will soon rival its neighbour…in its contribution to global growth.

"That could even happen in the second half of this year and is likely to be the norm by the 2030s."

Recent geopolitical events have also turned very much in India’s favour.

Simply stated, in a world where relations between the West and both Russia and China have been deteriorating, India is well-placed to derive strategic advantage by playing the two sides off against one another.

If the current fault-lines in global diplomacy were not so propitious for India, the illiberalism evident under Prime Minister Narendra Modi might be more of a negative factor.

Having said that, international sport has demonstrated again and again in recent times that it is not especially fussed about the liberal pedigree of the political leaders it is prepared to throw in its lot with, if the money is right.

India last month landed a spacecraft on the moon - the sort of feat that makes the world sit up and take notice.

Landing the Olympic Games would have a similar impact.

It looks very much within the bounds of possibility, given the way global trends are currently shaping, that 2036 will be judged the right moment for India, as 2008 was for China.

But these are turbulent times, 2036 is a long way away, and the IOC would be well-advised not to rush to make this particular judgement.